


The Spark

by berlynn_wohl



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Masturbation, Sexual Fantasy, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:24:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14047188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl
Summary: Hermann has trouble getting out of bed in the morning. He asks Newt for advice.





	The Spark

Newt and Hermann did not have a clock to punch. When they were hired to study the kaiju, and to figure out how to stop them, their reputations for productivity, energy, and self-discipline preceded them; no one needed to tell them to be at work by such-and-such a time, and to work diligently for a specific number of hours. In the Anchorage Shatterdome, the two scientists rose early, and worked themselves to exhaustion nearly every day.

Or at least, Newt rose early. Hermann _woke_ early, but with each passing day he found it increasingly difficult to rise. Winter in this Shatterdome was agony to face. The temperature in the lab was maintained mostly by the heat of the machines, and even then, it remained chilly. But in the living quarters, it was bitterly cold. He and Newt had been provided electric blankets for their beds, but those did not help them cope with life _outside_ the beds.

Every day, Hermann's alarm went off at 7 AM. This meant he ought to have been out of bed, showered, dressed, and in the lab by 7:45. But every morning, convinced that he only needed five more minutes to enjoy the relative warmth of his bed, he hit the snooze button. Then he hit it again five minutes later. And then, again.

What was the most agonizingly ironic about this was that he did not enjoy his time in his warm bed at all. He spent it wide awake and wracked with guilt that he wasn't getting up. He was wasting time, lying there not doing anything, but he simply could not bear to face the cold. Eventually, around 8 or 8:15, he forced himself out of bed and began his routine.

By the time he’d gotten up, everyone else had used up the hot water. Hermann did not even have the consolation of leaping from the warm bed to a hot shower. So every morning, he cursed himself for not getting up to claim his share of the hot water, and yet every morning, when he woke, he stayed where he was, quietly whining at the very thought of the frigid air on the other side of his blankets.

When Hermann finally did arrive in the lab, at what he considered the late hour of 9 AM, Newt was already there, well into his daily routine. This, for Hermann, was the most galling thing of all, that Newt, careless and undisciplined as he was, could get out of bed and start his work day before Hermann could.

And Newt was usually chipper, to boot. He certainly did not have the demeanor of someone who had spent an hour that morning hating himself before enduring ice-cold ablutions.

Finally, one day, Hermann wandered over to the other side of the lab and asked, "What's your secret?"

Newt did not look up from his dissection. "I don't know what to tell you, buddy. I was just born with this fabulous booty."

Hermann rolled his eyes. "I mean how do you get yourself out of bed every day in this freezing cold?"

"Oh, that." Now Newt paused for a moment, contemplating how he should answer. Then he just shrugged and said, "I jerk off."

"I _beg_ your pardon."

Newt put up his hands, a scalpel in one, his eyes still on the stainless-steel table. "Dude, I am not even trying to be weird. You asked, and that's what I do. I jerk off with the covers pulled up to my chin, and by the time I'm done, it's so hot under the blankets, I friggin' leap out of bed, and the cold air actually feels kind of refreshing. That doesn't last very long, but it does for long enough for me to get into the shower."

This last sentence was the part Hermann found intriguing, after enduring the first part of Newt’s answer. He asked, "And you get hot water in the morning?"

"Almost all the time, yeah. So long as I get in there by like, seven-thirty. After that, it's all been used up by everyone else who's on first shift."

"Alright, well, thank you for being so...candid." Hermann turned around and went back to his workspace, not sure if he was sorry he’d asked.

***

Hermann did his best to get on with his work, but Newt’s advice was very distracting, and Hermann’s mind wandered to it throughout the day. Masturbating in the morning was not his habit; in fact, masturbating at all was not his habit. Since being hired by the PPDC, Hermann’s life had been stressful and odd, and he did not often find himself aroused. He occasionally used masturbation to relieve some of the tension, and yes, perhaps once in a while he looked twice at his lab partner – that was what happened when you were cooped up with someone for a long time. But he was _busy_. Even when things were slow in the Shatterdome, even when there were no marauding kaiju to be seen, so long as the breach was open, he had a job to do.

Even before the war had begun, though, Hermann had long found the idea of masturbating in the morning to be unappealingly indolent. When he’d preferred to indulge himself was at the end of a long day, one that he’d deemed sufficiently productive, but which had not left him entirely depleted. In an ideal world, the early morning was not for malingering, but for early rising and brisk productivity.

But lately, in the real world, his early morning was for dread and self-loathing, giving in to that very indolence that he supposedly abhorred. And something had to be done. So that night, Hermann observed his usual bedtime ritual, with one addition: He picked up the box of tissues from his desk and put it by the bed, in case he decided to follow Newt’s advice.

***

Hermann’s alarm went off at 7 AM, as usual. This time, however, when he silenced it, he thought about what Newt had said. He could follow Newt’s advice…or he could just get up, like a responsible person. But it was so warm and cozy under the covers. He felt the slightest twinge in his bladder, but it was by no means urgent. Surely it wouldn’t make a difference if he stayed here for a few more minutes.

Hermann cursed himself for having those thoughts _yet again_ , when he knew very well he would regret them later. _Something had to be done_. With a sigh, he grabbed three or four tissues from the box he’d set aside the night before, and held them in his left hand. Then, lying on his back, he hooked his thumbs into his pajama bottoms and pushed them down over his hips. He rucked up his shirt a bit as well, for good measure. Then he paused, always feeling silly about starting this activity.

Instead of touching his prick directly, he began with his sack, rolling his balls in his palm, caressing the warm, soft skin, brushing his fingertips over the fine hairs. When he had half an erection from this, he moved up, and used his thumb and two fingers to slide his foreskin back and forth over his glans. He enjoyed especially when it glided across the sensitive crown, and he used this pleasure to find a rhythm. As he began to feel less ridiculous and more desirous, he gripped his shaft and gave himself firm strokes, occasionally using his thumb to caress his slit, slippery with pre-come.

It all felt lovely, but he just wasn’t feeling the spark that would spur him on to climax. This was not a tension-relieving indulgence, it was a task; he needed to find a way to speed things along.

He started thinking about Newt doing this, touching himself and enjoying his body. It made him feel a little guilty, dwelling on his lab partner this way, but then again, he could hardly be blamed for doing so, seeing as how Newt was the one who recommended this technique to him. Not to mention, Newt might himself be engaging in this technique right now, at this very moment. Hermann wondered whether Newt did the same sort of thing in his morning sessions, going about it in a straightforward way. He decided likely not; Newt was so uninhibited, practically a hedonist, and so almost certainly had a more elaborate ritual. He probably touched himself all over, did extravagant things like play with his nipples; perhaps he even had a toy that he used.

Hermann began to tug himself harder.

He decided it wouldn’t hurt anyone if he had a little fantasy about Newt. He squeezed himself tightly, and stroked slowly, to better simulate what it might feel like to be _inside_ him. Hermann had little in the way of sexual experience, but it didn’t require an incredible leap to imagine the squeeze of Newt’s body, or to picture what it would be like to look down and see Newt squirming beneath him (though it took some work, in his mind’s eye, to conjure an image of Newt without his glasses on).

Hermann imagined that Newt had a filthy mouth, and would noisily remark on everything that was happening to him. _You’re fucking me_ , Newt said in his mind. _You’re inside me, you’re fucking me_. Newt would probably be more imaginative than that in his commentary, but Hermann got stuck on those two statements for a while, until he moved on to thinking of Newt being able to do nothing but grunt heavily, because he was being seen to so well. Oh, and perhaps the occasional little sharp groan of shock, when Hermann plunged very deeply into him. In his fantasies, Hermann was not limited physically, as he was in day-to-day life; he could service Newt in any position Newt asked for, his hips rotating freely, his unbridled lunges and thrusts driving Newt to ecstasy.

But then, a thought popped into his head that never had before: what if Newt wanted to service _him_? In his mind’s eye, Newt was now settling between his spread legs. Then Newt’s belly was pressing against his prick. Hermann barely had time to dwell on the idea; the moment he imagined Newt's prick nudging against his hole, Hermann began to come. Only in the nick of time did he manage to clap the wadded tissues over himself as several threads of come pulsed powerfully from his slit.

Panting and wide-eyed, Hermann was bewildered by this random, spontaneous thought had caused him to climax so suddenly and so intensely. But this lasted only a moment before he was overwhelmed by the tropical heat he was currently swaddled in. He was sweating wherever skin touched skin, and he could feel damp patches on the sheet beneath the small of his back and his shoulder blades. Not to mention, the fullness in his bladder was much more urgent now. Hermann tumbled out of bed, clamoring to escape the suffocating heat and desperate to relieve himself.

And there he was. Feet on the floor and out of bed at 7:21 AM.

He tossed the crumpled tissues into the wastebasket, then stumbled to the bathroom for a very satisfying piss and, just as Newt had promised, a wonderful hot shower.

He walked into the lab at 8 AM, attempting at first to ignore Newt's eyes as they followed him to the electric kettle.

"So...?" Newt called after him, in a sing-song way.

"So what? _Good morning_ ," Hermann said, reminding Newt how to properly greet someone.

Newt was insistent. "So did it work? You're out early, is all I'm saying."

“Hmm,” was all Hermann said in reply. He made his tea in silence. But when he turned back around to head for his desk, he caught Newt looking at him. Momentarily chastened, Newt quickly returned to his work, pretending he hadn’t been gawping. Hermann frowned, but said nothing. He turned on his computer and began his routine daily tasks, and again, when he looked up, Newt was looking at him. This time, Newt didn’t shy away as quickly, and he was clearly smiling. Hermann looked askance, then turned his attention back to his work.

Hermann’s face got hot under Newt’s intermittent scrutiny, and he simply could not concentrate; he felt like a schoolboy who’d been caught being naughty. But then, if he was naughty for playing with himself, so was Newt. Unable to resist the urge, Hermann was now the one to steal a glance, and perhaps as he did so he replayed in his mind those images he’d entertained earlier in the morning.

Then it was Newt’s turn, to catch _him_ looking. But when he did, neither shied away; they held each other’s gaze this time, before breaking into laughter together.

**Author's Note:**

> berlynn-wohl.tumblr for more of this sort of nonsense  
> (also, check out hermanngottliebsuggestion.tumblr)


End file.
